Dave's RotF Rant: Fast Action Battlers Wave 4

     Missile Blast Skids (Chevy Beat concept)
     Grapple Grip Mudflap (reship)
     Grindor (redeco of Blackout)
     Desert Attack Bumblebee (sandy redeco)

     Permalink: http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/FAB4

     http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/Movie/FAB2 - Bumblebee and Blackout
original decos.

CAPSULES

     Missile Blast Skids: Fairly typical FAB robot mode and transformation,
sturdy vehicle mode, nothing really good or really bad about it.  Mildly
recommended.  $12.89 at Target.
     Grapple Grip Mudflap: Pretty mediocre in all respects, but the gimmick
has a juvenile-humor charm.  Mildly recommended in general, recommended if
you find the idea of using his middle finger as a weapon amusing.  $12.99 at
Target.  (Original full review at http://www.eyrie.org/~dvandom/BW/RotF/FAB3)
     Grindor: Original mold was recommended.
     Desert Attack Bumblebee: Original mold was recommended, but this is the
fourth deco scheme it's gotten, at least.

RANTS

     Packaging: Same as wave 1, but with the correct co-sells on the bottom. 


AUTOBOT: MISSILE BLAST SKIDS
Altmode: Chevy Beat Concept
Licensor: GM
Package call-out: "Firing missile blast!"

     Just like his brother MUDFLAP, AUTOBOT SKIDS idolizes the other
AUTOBOTS.  It's the chance of a lifetime to adventure alongside BUMBLEBEE and
OPTIMUS PRIME.  AUTOBOT SKIDS wants to impress his comrades so much that
he'll take almost any chance to do something heroic.

STR 4  INT 6  SPD 7  END 4  RNK 2  COUR 8  FRB 5  SKL 3  Avg 4.875


     Packaging: 5 twist-ties on the robot, one on the missile.  No rubber
bands. 

     Robot Mode: Oddly, this is like a slightly UN-exaggerated version of the
movie model.  The legs are short, but not as short as they should be.  The
right arm is oversized, but not to the extent it should be.  The head's just
as ugly as it's supposed to be, though.  Also, like the FAB Bumblebee mold,
the doors are tucked under the arms, as they fold against the front end to
deploy the arms.
     5.25" (13cm) tall and the expected mix of bright green and dark gray,
with some odd splashes of AllSpark Blue.  The head, left arm, upper right
arm, abdomen and thighs are dark gray plastic.  The wheels are black
plastic.  The missile, launcher trigger and the ball part of each ball and
socket joint (neck, shoulders, hips) are made of AllSpark Blue plastic.
     I'll go over the car-specific paints below, keep in mind that the front
end of the car becomes the robot's chest.  Bright green paint is used on the
face and the left forearm armor.  A black Autobot symbol is printed on the
right forearm.  The eyes are painted AllSpark Blue, and the right side buck
tooth is gold (no paint at all on the left tooth, despite silver being part
of the overall masking...cost saving measure, or just a goof?).  The rest of
the paints are from the car.
     The head is on a ball joint, but one where the stalk is horizontal.  So
the head tilts to the sides, can nod decently, but can barely turn to the
sides.  The shoulders are severely limited ball joints.  The right elbow is
hinged, and the gimmick joint on the right wrist allows some useful
articulation.  The elbow will bend about 45 degrees the wrong way, which is
to let it fit in vehicle mode, but also lets you simulate someone breaking
his arm if you're the vindictive sort who likes posing unpopular characters
in various stages of injury.  Not that I do that sort of thing, of course.
Just saying.  No joints in the left arm, though.  The waist does not turn.
The hips are ball joints, the knees are hinges with a pretty good range.
There's no spring gimmicks to mess with the articulation.
     Stability is iffy.  The doors don't lock in place, and look bad if you
try to use them as extra points of articulation to swing the arms out.  The
torso sort of clips into place, but the roof on the back has nothing stopping
it from being pushed in against the back, which undoes the torso.
     The toy's main gimmick is a missile launcher that can swing out to
replace the oversized hand along a swivel joint.  The launcher can be almost
completely stowed with the missile loaded, although it looks kinda weird,
hence giving the toy a storage clip on the left arm.

     Transformation: Pretty straightforward and mostly stuff we've seen
before on other FABs, although getting the arms tucked into the boots can be
tricky.  However, the one new piece is that the head stows by rotating along
an axis pointed forward...so it just tilts to the side and keeps going.  Mind
you, this leads to poor articulation for the head, but points for trying
something new. 
     You can't leave the missile on its arm storage clip when transforming, I
tried a few configurations and they simply don't work.  Fortunately, there's
alternate storage for the missile, see below.

     Vehicle Mode: Yet another iteration of the Chevy Beat.  As with Mudflap,
the real design is already pretty chibi, so the FAB warping is almost
unnoticeable.  The only FAB-ness, really, are the large hinges on the doors
and the boot parts stuck onto the back end.  Oh, and the obligatory "line
these arrows up" molding on the roof, but that's fairly subtle by
comparison. 
     4.75" (12cm) long, almost exactly as long as the Deluxe version, but a
bit wider.  Other than the black wheels all the plastic visible in this mode
(other than from underneath) is green.  The front and door windows are
metallic dull blue, but the rear seat windows and rear window are glossy dark
gray.  The dark gray is also used to limn the front door windows, and is on
the hood.  The headlights, foglamps and thin rings on the wheels are silver.
The front grilles are matte black, and the skidmark patterns on the sides are
printed black.  A black Autobot symbol is printed over each rear wheel.  The
taillights are red, and the molded Chevy logo on the front is gold.  The
molded Chevy logo on the back is unpainted.  It has molded windshield wipers,
but they're not separately painted.  Also, the rear grille is unpainted.
     It rolls well on the four wheels, but the robot toes make for pretty
small ground clearance.  Like most FAB cars, it holds together very firmly in
vehicle mode, intended for rougher play by smaller kids.
     Undocumented Feature: The missile storage clip on the arm cannot be used
in vehicle mode, but there's a second clip behind the left front wheel.  I
suspect the instructions may have missed this in part because the clip is
also used to stabilize the torso in robot mode, so it was mistaken by the
instruction-writers as being solely for that.

     Overall: I keep hoping to find a version of Skids I can like
unreservedly, given that there's so many out there you'd think there'd be at
least one.  But this isn't it (nor is the Deluxe, the Legends, the Robot
Heroes, or the Robot Replica...not gonna buy the Gravity Bot version, but I
doubt it's all that great).  Maybe the Human Alliance version will be good?
Anyway, as FABs go, this is pretty typical.  No huge problems, but nothing to
get excited about either.  Something you can give a little kid, though, which
can't be said about the "regular" RotF lines.

     Dave Van Domelen, suspects he'll like Human Alliance Skids more for the
Arcee-component cycle than for Skids itself....